Physical Cellular Automata – Time Lapse by Jan Vantomme

Jan Vantomme aka “vormplus”, designer based in Ghent-Belgium, created this time lapse movie of him making a physical cellular automata piece made from plastic pixels. What is particularly enjoyable are the two types of logic that engage the viewer; one being the celular automata itself and the other Jan’s method of putting it together. It makes you wonder how far apart are these, if at all. I am also pretty sure the video would work as well in reverse.

He needed a small time lapse application to document the project so he decided to write one himself. It was created using Processing 1.5.1 and the controlP5 library. He is using a Logitech webcam that supports HD video. The sketch saves images of 1280 × 720 pixels.

The source code of Timelapse can be downloaded on Github. You’ll find it on the Timelapse page.